


Think Of Me (How I Think Of You)

by Rokutagrl



Series: Taishiro Week 2018 [2]
Category: Digimon - All Media Types, Digimon Adventure
Genre: Honesty, M/M, Prompt: Cards, Taishiro Week 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-06
Packaged: 2019-03-27 18:10:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13886310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rokutagrl/pseuds/Rokutagrl
Summary: Honesty has never been an issue between them before, and yet somehow that’s exactly the problem at hand.





	Think Of Me (How I Think Of You)

**Author's Note:**

> Taishiro Week 2018; Prompt: Cards (Or, Laying one's cards on the table. An act of honesty).

Odaiba welcomes an early spring this year, just on the cusp of March. It sweeps in with little warning, melting fresh snow to puddles and mud. Overhead the barren branches of the tree reflect on his body in shadowy patterns, curling around the fabric of Koushirou’s pants, his arms, his face, like spindly claws. This is where he finds the last bits of winter hiding, it’s frosty tendrils nipping at any and all bits of his exposed flesh in the guise of shade. 

Koushirou shrugs back on the jacket he had shed on the walk over, letting the longer sleeves slip over his hands as ill designed mittens, leaving only his fingers uncovered to press on the keys of his laptop. He could work on the farther end of the blanket, he knows, but the shade gives Koushirou reprieve from the sun’s harsh glare on his too sensitive skin, and most importantly, on his computer screen. Beside him, his portable hotspot buzzes and burns mildly at his side through the fabric of his jeans, a welcomed source of warmth.  
  
It is barely midday, a bit early for lunch yet, when Koushirou notices Taichi ambling up the hill towards their spot. He runs a hand through his hair and a particularly long bang glues itself up, blending into his hairline.  
  
Taichi drops on to the blanket with an exaggerated huff, his limbs stretching out, occupying as much space as physics allows them. The soccer ball he’d brought along for practice rolls from his loose grasp and lodges itself against a small rock a few feet away. Taichi watches it, the closest hand twitching, as if he’s considering if it’ll stretch far enough to retrieve the ball without him needing to move otherwise. His fingers, just barely, dip over the edge of their blanket.  
  
Koushirou frowns. “Are you alright?”  
  
“Yeah,” Taichi breathes absently. “M’fine.”

A soft breeze cuts between them. Koushirou shivers, pushing one of his hands into the opposite sleeve until they’re safely tucked away in a tunnel of warmth. Taichi sighs at the relief of a cool breeze over his skin, eyes closing. He almost looks serene. _  
_

_Almost._

Koushirou counts the seconds between every jerk of Taichi’s leg. The weight of his heel thunks hollowly on the ground, padded by the thickness of their quilt. His finger refuse to settle in any one place.  
  
Work already forgotten, Koushirou saves his document and gingerly places his laptop to the side. He scrunches his legs into his chest, looping his arms about them and starring forward.  
  
Circus bears and carousel horses play beneath strands of Taichi’s hair. Koushirou busies his mind tracing each character with his eyes, piecing the obscured patterns together unconsciously.  He remembers this exact quilt, stretched out along the living room floor of the Yagami’s household when he would visit back in elementary school; a relic from when Hikari was still only a toddler. Taichi’s mother had lent it to them for the afternoon when Koushirou had left their usual one at home. 

  
“Hey,” Taichi says, catching his stare, his own fluttering and soft.  
  
“Hey, yourself,” Koushirou answers.    
  
“Can I help you?”  
  
“No,” Koushirou says. He rests his chin on the plateau of his knees. “I’m biding time until you tell me what’s bothering you.“  
  
Taichi furrows his brows, perplexed. Koushirou sees it, the moment something clicks and Taichi turns his face, as if it might deflect him in some way.  
  
Koushirou considers returning to his computer, or prodding Taichi’s hand with the pad of his foot, until the boy finally lets out a long, deep breath. It reminds Koushirou of the way balloons deflate.  
  
"You can read me like a book, huh?”  
  
_I know almost everything about you_ , burns in his mouth and simmers there until it dies. He knows it wasn’t a question.  
  
“I guess I was wondering something,” Taichi says. He scissors off a crop of grass with two fingers, then another. Koushirou hums for him to continue, his position tight enough that he feels the rumble through his core. “How much do you share with me? Like your thoughts and feelings. That kind of stuff.”  
  
The answer dives on Koushirou’s tongue immediately, but he bites down on his bottom lip to cave it in. If the answer, somehow, leans on the crux of Taichi’s mood, he wants to be certain of it. “Almost everything,” he says. It feels profound, fluttering his heart and dizzying up his head, to say aloud what he has always known. He finds this fact to be miraculous. Koushirou, who’s confidants need but one hand to be counted on, trusts everything to Taichi like a container beneath a leaky faucet.  
  
“Almost.” Taichi chews on the word like he’s been fed tar. “I guessed so.”  
  
Taichi rolls into a sitting position, crunching his legs to his chest. He walls an unfortunate blade of grass between both of his palms. He slowly edges one back, then forward again, until the blade spins wildly between them. “So you’d tell me if you liked someone?”  
  
Koushirou breathes in. His insides knot like angry snakes, his brain unable to process the turns in their conversations. “I suppose.”  
  
The friction doubles, Taichi pushing down until the blade no longer spins, but sits in his grasp and chafes against his palm. “What if it was someone I also liked?”  
  
Koushirou tries to conjure up a memory of every person Taichi has dated or liked, however fleeting. Their tastes don’t particularly run in tandem. He can’t seem to recall anyone he’s been particularly friendly nor flirtatious with recently, either.  
  
“I’m not sure,” he says, honestly. He rolls his finger around the outline of a vibrant, cartoon ball. “If it ever happened, I’d like to think we could discuss it.”  
  
“Okay.” Taichi breathes through pursed lips. Seemingly satisfied, he releases the blade, but it sticks to the flesh of his palm, just below his thumb. He falls onto his back once more and stares up at the sky, mouth pulled in a thin line. His upturned palms are stained with earthy tones of greens and browns in odd little lines. “What about me?”  
  
Koushirou blinks. "What about you?”  
  
His fingers twitch. A leg kicks. Koushirou waits.  
  
“What if you liked me?” Taichi’s eyes scrunch close and– _oh_. “Like you just woke up one day with this thought that… _ugh_! Just say you suddenly started wondering if you had a crush on me. Or something. Would you feel like you could tell _me_?”  
  
The silence between them stretches on infinitely. Children run by, laughing, kicking up dirt on the edges of their spread. One stumbles over Taichi’s soccer ball. It rolls a couple more feet out of reach, mostly ignored save for Koushirou’s eyes dazedly watching it.  
  
“Sorry,” Taichi says finally. He tosses an arm over his eyes, groaning. “That sounded ridiculous.”  
  
“No,” Koushirou whispers, “it doesn’t.”  
   
He joins Taichi laying down, curling on his side with his hands pillowing under his cheek. The spot on his thigh where the hotspot warmed him feels particularly cold now.  
  
“Suppose one of us did, though? Possess that sort of feeling, I mean. Would you be frightened that it could befoul our friendship.”

“Nah.“ Taichi’s answer is decisive and swift, as if he’d been sitting on it long before Koushirou had reason to form the question. His arm relaxes then, swinging down towards the quilt and just barely missing the tip of Koushirou’s hair. “I wouldn’t let that happen.”  
  
Taichi tilts his face to look at him then, determined. His eyes seem to soak up little droplets of sun, liquid gold cast in amber, and Koushirou misses a breath. He wishes he could pin the exact color down to a single word so he can buy it in absolutely everything, because it is now his favorite.  
  
“If I knew it, indisputably,” Koushirou concedes, “then I might. Tell you, that is.”  
  
“Okay.” Taichi breathes in harshly, then exhales quick and audibly through his mouth. It feels like furious butterflies are crowding to escape from his chest, and Koushirou wonders if it feels like that for him, too. “Cool.”  
  
Fingers ghost over the crop of Koushirou’s hair, the feeling almost soothing. He watches the cricks and folds in Taichi’s mood slowly unfurl, the tension in his muscles relaxing. When his eyes finally flutter shut, Koushirou misses them in a way he doesn’t quite understand.  
  
"Why did you want to know?” He whispers it, soft and low, as Taichi’s breathing evens out. Oddly, he almost hopes that he is not heard.  
  
“Don’t worry,” Taichi says. His lashes flutter again, but disappointingly, do not open. He yawns around his next sentence and repeats, drowsily, “I’ll tell you, soon, Kou.”  
  
“Alright,“ Koushirou says. He wonders if it’s the sun that’s so warm, or if Taichi’s body heat reaches him, but it seeps slowly into his bones, weighs down his eyes until he cannot keep them open even if he tried.  
  
"You’ll be the first to know,” Taichi murmurs and Koushirou breathes a laugh at the sound of his sleepy mumbles. “As soon as I’m certain… promise.”  
  
“I look forward to it.”


End file.
